Tuesday, December 18, 2012

3-year-old unintentionally shoots and kills himself with uncle's gun

3-year-old Ryder Rozier, of Guthrie, Oklahoma was visiting his uncle Ian Rozier. Rozier is an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper. According to reports, Ryder found a loaded, unlocked handgun on a bedroom nightstand.
Ryder unintentionally shot himself in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The gun was the trooper's person weapon, not his state-issued gun. According to his aunt, the family was preparing for Christmas. Ryder was very excited about the upcoming holiday and asked his parents to hurry up and wrap all the presents so he could find them under the tree.
Oklahoma does not have a Child Access Prevention law. Such laws require that guns be kept locked and not accessible by children.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

As a gun owner & CCW licensee with small children, stories like this make me sick. Guns in nightstands, on tables, under couch cushions... One wonders how many lives could be saved, injuries prevented, if people would exercise common sense responsibility.

Child access laws or not, c'mon folks!

Talk about new gun laws, how about this one... if you are involved in a firearms-related incident due to your negligence, you lose firearms ownership rights for [ever? 5yrs? 20 years?] Applies to law enforcement officers as well. How many of these posts (like this one) involve LEOs who leave duty or personal weapons laying around? More highly trained? Seriously?

Ohh Shoot highlights unintentional shootings. Some might refer to these as accidental shootings, but accident is too often interpreted as unavoidable. The shootings on this blog did not have to happen. Safe storage, better gun design, gun safety training are just some of the measures that could have prevented these tragedies.